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Only seconds had passed since Hauke made his first move, and among the wagons, carriage doors slammed open while soldiers shook themselves out of their shock and began to rush forward.

Standing beside one of the carriages, Emmie looked on in horror as shards of coldly glittering ice rained down on Lady Heila.

While her thick, fur cloak saved her from many of the shards, others sliced through the sleeves of her dress and skirt and even ricocheted off her horns, cutting into her scalp and splattering the crisp white snow beneath her with a lurid wave of hot crimson blood.

"No, no, don’t hurt her! Father," Emmie cried out, tears forming in her eyes as she tried to understand why this was happening.

Just a few hours ago, Lady Heila had told her that if she did her duties well, she would introduce her to the young Frost Walker lord who would likely be the next ruler of the High Pass.

But now, nothing made sense at all as that very same young lord looked at Heila with a dark, murderous expression, unleashing a storm of deadly sorcery.

Looking to the driver’s seat, her father Kurtz was already preparing to rush to Heila’s defense, but as he collected his sword and buckler, he seemed like he was moving far too slowly to the young and panicked squire.

"Father, save her!" Emmie cried.

As much as he wanted to reassure her, Kurtz spared no words for his daughter as he carefully gauged the distance before jumping down from the carriage and rushing to help the injured witch, but by the time he moved, several others were already rushing past him.

On the opposite side, blood drained from Ritchel’s face as he heard the same ancient voices that had spoken through Hauke during the council meeting once again echoing from his son’s mouth.

Old Svenja had said then that they couldn’t blindly accept the sorcery used to preserve those ancient horns.

She and Commander Jannik had both argued that they horns should be placed within an ancestral cave, even if that meant that the presence of the ancestors might dissipate within a year.

Now, horror gripped his heart with icy claws as he realized that those long-dead ancestors were capable of doing far more than simply borrowing his son’s body to speak.

Already, Nyrielle’s forces were gathering to attack, and if he didn’t act quickly, his son’s life would likely be forfeit before they could save him from the very ancestors he’d fought so hard to preserve.

"Men, to me!" Ritchel shouted to his honor guard. His voice boomed across the ice, snapping his men out of their own shock and drawing them instantly into defensive postures surrounding the Eldritch Lord of the High Pass. "Combine your sorcery with mine," he commanded. "Form a tomb of ice!"

In the center of the storm, Ashlynn’s emerald eyes hardened as she realized something strange had come over Hauke.

Seeing the different voices that spilled from his lips and seeing the imperious, arrogant demeanor that couldn’t be further removed from the humble, kind, and eager young sorcerer she remembered, combined with the eerie, glowing horns strapped to his chest, only made it clearer.

The first time they ventured into the sealed ancestral cave, buried beneath the ice on an island in the middle of a lake, the spirits of the ancestors had possessed Hauke, using him like a puppet and a mouth piece, threatening his life while demanding that she help them break through the seal that held them captive.

Now, for some reason, it seemed like they’d been able to take even more control of her young friend.

But even if the person attacking Heila wasn’t the friend she remembered, she was certain that he was still in there somewhere.

That thought cost her precious seconds while she tried to find a way to protect Heila without harming Hauke, and in those seconds, one of the spirits possessing Hauke made their own move.

"Blinding Snow, Swirling Winds!" Ines said, channeling her sorcery through the young Frost Walker she’d patiently tutored these past several months. In life, she had borne the moniker ’the Unending Blizzard’ and the magic she unleashed now proved her right to carry the title.

Snow spilled from the mountain top, caught by swirling winds that enveloped Nyrielle’s army, blinding anyone without superior senses and limiting the vision of those who could still see to just a few feet in front of their own frozen noses.

The hundreds of torches that lit their way through the darkness were snuffed out in an instant, transforming the world into a land of darkness filled only with the storm of dancing white snowflakes.

The sounds of panicked horses and braying mules filled the air, and wagon drivers quickly fumbled their way forward, trying to calm their fear-stricken beasts before they bolted in panic at the sudden change in weather.

"Damn it," Ashlynn swore, giving up on resolving things without harming Hauke and rushing forward with her darksteel blade drawn. The weight of dark magic still clung to her, trapping her own magic and limiting her to what she could do with the strength and speed of her body, but that alone was enough to slash at the backs of Hauke’s unprotected knees.

"Do not interfere," Ansgar, the proud former Lord of the Seven Peaks, said, his deep, booming voice sounding jarringly incongruous with Hauke’s youthful, innocent features. He spun as he spoke, covering a fist with a layer of thick ice and punching downward to block Ashlynn’s blade.

-CLANG-

The sound of darksteel ringing off ice filled the air, reverberating around them as Ashlynn realized that even more sorcery was at play than what the ancestral spirits had unleashed.

She didn’t know when it happened, but at some point, while Ines had been unleashing her blizzard and Ashlynn had struggled against the oppressive sorcery that sealed her magic, cold, crystalline wills of ice had formed around her and the possessed Hauke.

If one sorcerer had created the entire structure, the walls would have been thin enough and weak enough for her to smash through them and make her escape, but if that was true for her, it was certainly true for the ancestors possessing her friend.

Now, as she looked at the hazy, six sided prison she found herself in with a cieling that was less than a dozen feet above her head, she realized that this wasn’t just an icy prison.

.. it was the combined working of seven sorcerors, each one creating just one of the thick, sturdy walls turning it into more than just a prison.

Trapped inside it with a host of malevolent spirits, she suddenly felt like she’d been sealed in an icy tomb.